Runners are incredible people – I say that from an outside perspective and not about myself. Sure, there’s something a little crazy (or a lot crazy) about someone who would go out and run 26.2 miles just for a medal and a tshirt. But crazy is just where it begins.
Runners are inspirational and motivating. They’re competitive yet compassionate. They’re wickedly funny and occasionally delirious from the pain. They’re driven, persistent, and ridiculously blockheaded about their own training. Runners are the only people I know who will tell you that it would be in your best interest to take off time for an injury while continuing to train with the same injury themselves because they think they can do it.
I feel that I saw some of the best of humanity at the WDW marathon. When my knee pain worsened to the point where I had to limp, I can’t tell you how many runners checked to make sure I was okay. When the pain became unbearable and I stopped on the side of the road to stretch, another runner came up and offered me the pack of BioFreeze that he had been carrying for himself. I saw runners giving GU packets to other runners and constantly looking out to make sure that everyone in the pack around them was doing well.
Every time I saw a runner struggling, I saw another runner cheering him/her on. When I hit rock bottom, a runner that passed me tore off a piece of paper that she had pinned to her shirt and handed it to me. On it was a quote, “You can achieve anything, but you have to believe, and you have to fight.” I can’t tell you how far that little piece of paper pushed me.
The marathon was almost like a community. Maybe it was because I was so far at the back that we all just wanted to finish, but everyone suffering together was a bonding experience. There were so many people who touched my life at that race that I will never see again (and wouldn’t recognize them if I did). I definitely think that’s why I race – not for the time on the clock at the finish line, but for that feeling of belonging to a community of people who are all striving for the same goal.